pt. 2

The conversation discusses the health benefits of Korean food, particularly collagen and kimchi. Collagen is known for its skincare benefits and promoting hair growth. Kimchi is a probiotic vegetable dish that is beneficial for gut health. Korean food is generally healthy, balanced, and includes a variety of vegetables, meats, and seafood. The conversation also touches upon the diet culture in Korea, which focuses on flavorful and balanced foods rather than restrictive diets. The discussion will continue with the topic of cafe culture. Hi, we're back. Okay, so we're now going to talk about health benefits, which is crazy. That reminded me of when we were at K-Belly, and it just sparked such an interesting conversation because a lot of the drinks have these jelly cubes in them that I'd seen before, and I didn't know much about them. And Sarah mentioned how they're usually collagen, and apparently a lot of people in Korea, I think it's both men and women, eat collagen, which, collagen can also be used in skincare products, but apparently eating it is more effective to make the skin, like, smoother and, I think, look younger, and so it's a good skincare thing, and it's so interesting how they're like, we need skincare, sort of, and they think about what they eat that much. And I think kimchi is similar in how it's fermented, so they have all these amazing health benefits in their food, and kimchi is, like, probiotic, and it's a vegetable, it's just cabbage that we eat. Yeah, so with kimchi, yeah, so it's salted and fermented. It's mainly a traditional Korean dish, and it can include cabbage, radish, ginger, onion, fish sauce, like, a lot of stuff. But, and so since it's mainly just vegetables, obviously it's really good for you. And going back onto the collagen topic, so, yeah, it's really good for skincare and stuff, but I know that collagen, like, it also has other properties, like, it can really help, like, hair growth and stuff like that. So in that regard, it can also be, like, pretty nutritional and pretty good for you. Anything you want to add, or? I didn't even know that about the hair growth. That's cool. Yeah. I feel like it has a lot of benefits. Yeah, collagen, like, it can help you with, actually, your nails grow, it can help you with your hair growth, it can help you with, like, skin. And some of it is elasticity, because when you're around 25, your body starts, or begins to decrease its production of it, so that's when you start aging more rapidly. Yeah. Collagen is found in the extracellular matrix of, like, all our cells. It's the elastic fiber that keeps them together. So, yeah, usually when you get older and you start to, like, form wrinkles, that's because you're decreasing your collagen production. And yeah, I can see, like you mentioned, it's really great for your gut microbiome because of all the probiotics in it. It's kind of, like, basically a living food, if that makes any sense. Oh, yeah. Do they also have that with their yogurt stuff and drinks? Yes, and a lot of the yogurt is probiotic as well as a living, like. It's a living foster that you put in your body, basically, to help you, you know, help your body digest other foods. And, yeah, when you're there, a lot of stuff is marked as, like, low calorie or, like, low sugar, very much like they care about how much sugar they're putting in their body and their health. And I feel like that's a really big thing, especially in the younger population, is that people really care about convenience and their health over more traditional values. Do you have anything to add on to that? Yeah, kind of, like, heading to the skin care stuff. Like, people, like, literally are, like, needing their skin care. Instead of, like, putting vitamin C or collagen or things, which they still are, they're trying to consume it more like something, like, I don't know what. Maybe, like, pixie has, like, tons of collagen. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I also eat pixie. It's also, like, pretty balanced for your cholesterol. It's also, like, gelatin or whatever. It's, like, I think, like, they've used, like, pixie or whatever for, like, certain gummies and stuff. Oh, yeah. Sometimes it can be, like, pretty good for you. Bone broths are super big there. There's a ton. There's, like, a whole chicken in there. They put, like, a glutinous, like, sticky rice inside the chicken. I've had it before. Insanely good. But also, it's, like, really good for your health. I think it's also kind of diet culture, like, these, like, real foods. So not only are they good for your health, but it's long-term, though, so it's, like, to lose weight in a way. Yeah, a lot of the things, like, they're, like, putting, like, the whole chicken in that. It's the collagen is found in the, like, cartilage of the chicken, so in between the bones and stuff like that. So when you do things like that, you make the bone broth, it takes a lot of that collagen out of the tendons and ligaments and bones, and it brings it into the broth itself. Yeah. And, like, with Korean food in general, like, a lot of it, another thing, like, when we're talking about, like, cultural Korean food, it's all super healthy. Like, it's also, like, vegetables, fermented foods, soups, rice, and there's, like, a mix of, like, meat and seafood also. Like, I mean, I don't know a ton about Korean food. We just went to one today. But, you know, I know kimchi. That's pretty good. Bimbap. There's, what was the other one? Bimbap. Bimbap. Yeah, there's japchae. Is that? Yeah. So all of that, it all contains a bunch of vegetables, and it can provide, like, energy and carbohydrates, protein. Basically, it's pretty balanced, but also, yeah, it's super well-balanced. Yeah. Yeah. I think in everything that each of us ate today, we all had some form of vegetable in it. Even in my rambokki, I had, like, little pieces of radishes and, you know, onions. Yeah, and I feel like the diet culture there is, like, I don't know. I feel like if you were dieting like crazy, it would be more fun there. Like, for us here, it's like, oh, a salad and another salad and another salad. Like, that's it. Or, like, the water with, like, the weird powders. It's a normal food. It's flavorful food, but it's still very intrinsically balanced. I feel like that kind of dichotomy is very interesting. I agree. A lot of our diet foods, like, it's like you have to choose between healthy foods and foods that taste good, while a lot of Korean foods both, you know, they both are good and taste good. Yeah, because, like, when you think about it, for, like, regular food that you'll just get day-to-day here, like, if you go to Chick-fil-A or some sort of fast food, like, you're not really going to have anything, like, too many vegetables, like, by itself or anything, like, super nutritious. It's going to be stuff that you think, like, tastes good or stuff that's, like, manufactured or processed or something like that. So, I mean, with Korean food having all these, like, natural, healthy, traditional choices, I feel like it would be really good for you. I thought it was interesting how the food was really, like, so fast. And yet, yeah, it had a ton of vegetables. My bibimbap had a bunch of vegetables in it. A lot of y'all's stuff also had just, like, healthy proteins and, like, eggs. So, it seems like at least the place we went to has really figured out how to balance convenience and, like, health. And it was great. It tasted amazing, too. Like, things really didn't melt. You know what also tastes really good there? The cafes. Can we talk about cafes? Cafes are so fun. Fun to talk about. We're going to take a fun little break, and then we're going to come back and talk about cafe culture.